


Keep Yourself Alive

by zennies_jh



Series: Leaving Home Ain’t Easy [1]
Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Angst, Leaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:00:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zennies_jh/pseuds/zennies_jh
Summary: Post 8x15. Jackie reflects on the events of the night and makes a decision.
Relationships: Jackie Burkhart/Steven Hyde
Series: Leaving Home Ain’t Easy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985236
Comments: 15
Kudos: 60





	Keep Yourself Alive

Jackie walked into the apartment after Fez, and as he opened his mouth to speak, she walked straight by him into the bathroom without a word. 

She’d stayed in Point Place, despite every brain cell she had within her telling her to get the hell out. She had hoped that one day he’d come to his senses and realize that a vapid stripper is nothing compared to the love of his life, and he’d grovel and pine after her for a little while before she’d eventually open her arms for him again. And she’d maybe also hoped that Donna would realize that a 4-year friendship that included living together was worth more than a new friendship with a fellow blonde.

But as she started the shower, she began to slowly and silently accept the fact that it was over. After tonight, the words that Steven had thrown at her, pushing her in the lake, and Donna simply laughing it off and choosing not to see the pain in her best friend’s eyes, the truth was thrust upon her doorstep, and she couldn’t escape it anymore. Two years ago, he’d punched a guy for calling her a bitch, and now, that very word leaves his lips and chases her, and she tries to run from it, but the carelessness in his tone shackles her in place like a caged animal.

As she scrubbed herself clean of lake water, she contemplated just how everybody had let Sam take her place. She’s sitting on Steven’s lap and she’s sleeping over at Donna’s and Fez and Kelso are obsessing over her now. The Formans have embraced Sam and Jackie knows that this is her hell. Where did she go wrong? As she skims over moments of her past, she knows what she has to do. The hardest things she’d ever do, but maybe just the bravest. She climbs out of the shower and before she walks into her room, she listens at Fez’s door for the sound of snoring. When she hears it, she sneaks into her room and puts throws on a pair of jeans and a blouse. She doesn’t bother with hair or makeup, she’ll be right back. She grabs the keys to her Daddy’s Lincoln and tip-toes out the door.

She’s completely numb to everything around her as she pulls into the driveway of her childhood home. She glances up at the mansion and allows childhood memories of her parents, before her mother grew tired of her and her father got arrested. She drove there thinking that she’d spend more time in the mansion than she actually did. She planned to walk throughout, relishing in her childhood memories one last time. But when she unlocked the door and glanced around, she realized that her best memories lie elsewhere, in a crappy basement that smelled of weed and decorated with tacky furniture. So instead, she walks straight to the upstairs walk-in closet. It takes her four trips to drag all 7 pieces of the pink luggage set: three large suitcases, two carry-on sizes, and two briefcase-like bags. She loads them into the car and speeds back to her apartment. 

When she gets there, she grudgingly loads all of the suitcases onto the elevator and when she gets off, she has to run back and forth to grab them all before the doors close. As she entered the apartment she’s extra careful dragging the suitcases to her room. She can’t wake up Fez. He’ll convince her to stay and she’ll be weak enough to do so. So she plops one suitcase onto her bed carefully and begins to roll her clothes frantically to make more room. Her clothes take up two of the three large bags, and she fills half of the third with her shoes.

She stops abruptly when she sees a small-brown box at the corner of her closet. It was her Steven box. She took a deep breath and closed her before throwing the box into her trash can. 

She knew exactly what was in there anyway. A Led Zeppelin T-shirt. The charm bracelet he’d given her for graduation. 1984 by George Orwell, that she had read out of spite after he told her it wasn’t her style of books.

She held back her tears as she continued to pack her things. 

“It’s time.” She whispered to herself. 

A little voice in her head whispered back, “Wait a little longer, he’ll come back.”

“Shut up.” She told that annoying voice in her head. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

She had to get out of here. Just leave and find a new anything. If someone had asked her if she’d leave Point Place without Steven, she would have laughed in their face. But here she  
was, packing her bags and saying goodbye to the town that holds her best memories and her worst nightmares.

She wondered, in the morning, when Fez tells everyone she’s gone, what they’ll say. Will they be sad? Worried? Will they dismiss it as just a temper tantrum and assume she’ll come back in a week or two?

“I’ll show them.” She thought almost wickedly.

As she zoned back into her surroundings, she realized that she had packed everything. The room was empty bar the bed and the nightstand. All evidence of her residence there was gone, packed into the pink hard shell suitcases on her sheet-less bed. She dragged the bags off the bed one by one. When she was pulling them to the front door, she cringed when the suitcases hit the table by the couch. Creeping to Fez’s door, she listened intently until she was sure he was still sleeping. 

When she finally got all her bags out the door. Just like when she brought them upstairs, she had to sprint back and forth twice to get everything into the elevator. Was she making a mistake? Was this too rash? She didn’t even have a plan, a job, anywhere to go. When she did have that, she just gave it up and came running back to a man who left her for a stripper. She can’t turn back now, she’s not sure she has it in her. 

Will Donna miss her? Will Steven regret his words and his actions? She can’t decide if she wanted to hurt him or if she wants him to find peace within his life. She knows for a fact that he won’t be happy until he gets out of his marriage with Sam.

She’s packing her bags into the trunk and backseat into her Lincoln, and before she even processes what she’s doing, she starts the car and drives into the night. She’ll call tomorrow, tell Mrs. Forman she left and apologize for not saying anything.

“Goodbye, Point Place,” She says wistfully.

**Author's Note:**

> So I know this is kind of um.… terrible, but please leave kudos and comment!!
> 
> Can you guys let me know if you like New Girl? I’m thinking of having Jackie meet the characters from the show, so PLEASEE let me know what you’d think of that.


End file.
